The present invention relates to the field of aircraft, and more particularly concerns a rear door for a landing gear box, and a landing gear box equipped with such a rear door, an aircraft equipped with such a landing gear box, and finally a method for deployment and a method for retraction of a landing gear using the rear door.
Certain aircraft landing gear boxes are equipped with one or more doors arranged on a front side of the box, called the front doors, and one or more doors arranged on a rear side of the box, called the rear doors.
Operation of the front doors is generally controlled by a dedicated device, while the rear doors are generally mechanically connected to the landing gear such that the landing gear drives the rear doors during its deployment or retraction.
Thus in a landing gear box of this type, the front doors open first while the rear doors open later under the effect of deployment of the landing gear.
This time difference between the opening of the front and rear doors respectively presents disadvantages.
In fact, at the start of the opening sequence of the landing gear box, the air tends to flood into the landing gear box through the open front doors and be held by the closed rear doors, which hinders the aerodynamic performance of the aircraft. Furthermore, this requires structurally reinforcing the doors and/or the landing gear box so as not to risk damaging the components of the landing gear box. The result is an increase in the production cost of the aircraft and an increase in the aircraft mass.
One solution to this problem could comprise providing air passage orifices within the rear doors. However, such orifices would hinder the aerodynamic performance of the aircraft when the front and rear doors are in the closed position, in particular during cruising.